all about Fuad Bey's relations with his fellow inmates.//
Representative photo (!)
14 January 1917
Sunday
The weather is
still cloudy. Not cold at all, though. The Greek
government has announced its general
neutrality, with the condition
that it turn over all its weapons to England.
Greek territory is now free.
The
armies of both sides will take the land they acquire up until the end
of the
war. Greek territory is
now essentially in the hands of the English.
Another regrettable incident this evening. The bread
issue was under
discussion. In the evening Salah called everyone to the big room and
said
‘single-grained bread is 15 kopes per funt. Whoever wants it can
buy it. Those who don’t take
back your money and go.’ Naturally, I
had a stake in this and came out against
it because Salah had
said this.
In addition, Salah’s attitude was very ostentatious. I really got annoyed.
I said
some things, including ‘why are you calling this single-grained?
Everyone
accepts this. Those who
want it, take it. Those who don’t,
leave. What kind of talk is this?’ Just then, another problem arose
about
another person joining us with those who were managing the bread issue.
I wasn’t
particularly involved in this. I always insist on the old system.
Çerkes Mehmet
was in our room at this time.
In any event, all this noise
didn’t
result in a fight. If Salah had wanted such a fight I would
probably
have helped the side I favored. The crude Salah gathered a bunch of
brutes around him,
seemingly relying on their support. But nothing
happened. Tonight for some
reason passed quite
nicely, instead of my
being lost in deep thought.
15 January 1917
Monday
The weather is
like yesterday. News: the Armenians are bothering
everyone. They’re saying ‘we’re holding a grief day, a death holiday and
are quite upset at being the victims of a calamity.
In the morning I made
a decision for myself. My aim was to not open the way to any long
adventure right now. Zühdü
agreed to this. Later we spoke with Saffet.
At this point , Salah asked me why
I had suddenly come
out against him.
I said that his remarks were of concern to me. In response, he admitted
that
his words were intended for something else and that there was
absolutely no connection with
us. Anyway, I went over to the other
house for a while and then returned. In
the evening Zühdü said
to me
that he won’t get bread from here anymore. I thought about this. This
will make things
difficult. If Zühdü leaves then we’ll be left in a tough
situation. In any
case, I asked not to do
this and said that after this we
would live together. We spoke again with
Saffet on this subject at
some
length. Saffet brought Salah over and Salah assured Zühdü that his
remarks had definitely not
been directed at him. We talked with Zühdü
about us moving to the big room. I told Saffet that
‘if Fahri and Hurşid
come to our room then we’ll go to the other room.’ I added that if they
didn’t
want to come then we would remain in our old positions. That’s
how today passed. I was
angry that Zühdü’s friend of six or seven
months, Burhan, abandoned Zühdü at a time like this and
started to get
into close contact with Salah’s partisans.
16 January 1917
Tuesday
The weather is
overcast. Cold like it used to be. News: the Turks have
split the Russian line
in the Caucasus. The
Russians left many dead and
the wounded ran away. They’re worried that they’ll be eaten
by wolves.
In Bucharest the rulers and heirs to the thrones of the allied
governments,
along with famous
generals, will be gathered together. Enver Paşa will
go, too…in the afternoon I went to the
market. I bought two notebooks
in order to make a diary and a package of
tobacco. When I came back to
the
house Saffet came over to me and said a couple of things. He said that
he liked me, that the
matter would be solved somehow entirely as a favor
to me, that he had always
done what he could to
support me and always
would do so. In the end he added that it wold be possible to change rooms.
I
said that I felt the same way about him and that I felt badly about what I
had said to him. Then
I added that since Zühdü is my friend I would
always help and defend him. He said that on his
honor he didn’t know
that Zühdü and I were friends and a few other hypocritical things.
Anyway, we
came to the house and we’ll move the beds. But they
duped us by putting Burhan in Hurşid’s
place. Fahri and Burhan came.
We left. I found Burhan to be quite vile and unfeeling. He showed
meanness in abandoning his friend
of six months, Zühdü, under Salah’s
influence. How
vile are these fellows! Damn these Trabzon guys! If
they’re all as lowdown as
these, may God give them
some good sense.
17 January 1917
Wednesday
The weather is
like it has been. Some snow fell. We spoke with Şerif a
bit in front of the
door around noon.
Saffet is nervous because I mostly
go to Adlifinski so he asked Geveze
(chatterbox) Ismail about my
going
to that house and to find out why and let him know. Anyway, lowdown
Saffet is doing a
lot of things under the mask of being my fellow
townsman. For sure, one day
we’ll come face to face
without the mask.
Another regrettable incident in the evening: Salah and his
pals deceived
Hikmet.
After the evening meal Hikmet came to the table on a pretext
and since the
table is common he gave
the money equal to all the
common shares and took the table. Using a meaningless little word as a
pretext, he was going to fight with Mehmet Ağa. But I didn’t let this
happen.
At this point Süleyman complained to Çerkes Mehmet. We
were having a German lesson. Çerkes Mehmet and Süleyman came
over. We took a break from our lesson. Süleyman was openly
complaining and said that Salah
has formed a committee. At this point,
Salah and his group wanted to interrupt
but Çerkes Mehmet left
the
matter until tomorrow…(after Salah had) deceived Hikmet about the
?security? problem, Hikmet told Mustafa to defend him and when
Mustafa didn’t agree to
this, this time Salah
tried to deceive Mustafa.
Mustafa told
Zühdü and Süleyman about this, and Süleyman complained.
Kazim came from jail tonight. He and Saffet had a long talk. He hinted
that we were always against
him. Hikmet is a dirty fellow and he’s allied
himself with men who curse their
honor and their wives.
What ridiculous
ignominy!
18 January 1917
Thursday
The weather was
nice until noon, then it got cloudy. Some snow fell
toward evening. The cold is not so bad. After
lunch Halis, Zühdü and
I got permission from the ustarşi (Russian supervisor)
and went to the
other
houses. I went to Adlifinski and they
went to Lebedof. The
Lieutenant Colonel was coming to our
house because Çerkes Mehmet
told him about yesterday’s problem. We were interested in this
matter
too, so we came back. When the Lieutenant Colonel came to the house
we gathered around
The Lieutenant Colonel began the inquiry. First,
Süleyman spoke. Then Salah and Saffet started
to speak. A number of
other people offered their opinions. The matter was just about
deadlocked.
The Lieutenant Colonel said he didn’t have any time and
wanted the sides to make peace
immediately. He said we had to live
without noise. At this point, Kazim claimed that Salah had
said
something behind his back and he told Salah to own up to this right
away.
But the Lieutenant
Colonel didn’t want to prolong the
matter,
told them to make up and left. Evening came. I was only
mad at
Mustafa about this. He had lied when the Lieutenant Colonel was here
although he had
said that lowdown Hikmet was provoked by Salah’s
friends and that he had joined in with them. Because this was certain.
In any event,
things like this expose everyone’s truthfulness.
All the fellows
assembled after the evening meal. Haydar Bey, Çerkes
Mehmet and the doctor came to our room and we
all drank tea. Then
we all shook each other’s hand. Everyone made peace. We chatted.
Then we
were left by ourselves. Saffet and I explained a lot of things
about our
homeland. We again asked
Süleyman to give us lessons. He
agreed. We didn’t get to bed until two o’clock.
//END of PART LXII//
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